Reid ready to play at recess

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used to consider recess appointments “an end run around the Senate and the Constitution” — so much so that he kept the chamber open during breaks to prevent President George W. Bush from making any more of them.

But with a Democrat in the White House, and Republicans blocking executive branch nominees, Reid and his allies are starting to sing a different tune.

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Reid said last week that he’s “tried hard” to avoid the need for President Barack Obama to make recess appointments, but he added: “What alternative do we have?

Shelby has placed the hold on nominees to jam the administration on two home-state issues: He wants changes in the bidding process for the Pentagon’s air-to-air refueling tanker, which could lead to jobs in his state, and he wants an FBI counterterrorism lab to be built in Alabama.

Democrats say Shelby’s hold puts a fine point on their argument that Republicans are abusing Senate procedures to stall bills and nominees — and that that will make recess appointments politically palatable in a way that they haven’t been before.

Some are urging Obama to install some of his nominees during the Presidents Day recess the week of Feb. 15. On the top of the list: Craig Becker, Obama’s controversial, labor-backed nominee for the National Labor Relations Board.

Democrats will try to get the 60 votes necessary to break a GOP filibuster on Becker’s nomination Monday. But with the arrival of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), they’ve got just 59 likely votes, and it’s not clear whether they can persuade a single Republican senator to cross over on the cloture motion.

“They can’t let the minority party call the shots when it comes to the handling of critical nominations,” Bill Samuel, legislative director of the powerful AFL-CIO, said, calling on Obama to consider recess appointing Becker if his nomination stalls.

Before the Senate leaves for a recess, Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky usually engage in intense negotiations over which nominees can be confirmed quickly by voice vote. If they can’t reach a deal by the end of this work period, which is scheduled to end Feb. 12 — or if Shelby prevents that from happening — some analysts believe that Democrats will be on safe political ground if Obama makes recess appointments.

“When a senator highlights obstructive procedures — as Southerners did in the 1950s and 1960s with the filibuster, committee obstruction and more — it gives Democrats some political space to fight back, either by reform or finding ways around the normal process,” said Julian Zelizer, a historian at Princeton University.

But Republicans say the public is already alarmed by Democratic overreach and will view recess appointments as more of the same. They dismiss the idea that Shelby’s holds give Democrats any additional political cover.

“If anyone thinks this has political significance, they need to put down the federal pages and take a trip outside the 202 as soon as the weather permits,” one senior GOP aide said. “Turns out people are more concerned with their own jobs than the appointments of a bunch of federal bureaucrats.”

In addition to Becker, there are a number of controversial appointments whose recess appointments could inflame Republican passions — including Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Democrats said Obama could be on safer political ground if he uses early recess appointments to install national security nominees, including four to senior positions in the Pentagon.